Inspired to visit The Natural History Museum in Oxford by the lure of the Biodiversity exhibition with works by Kurt Jackson, I've now been twice in the last two weeks. It's a perfect place to host an exhibition about biodiversity because it reminds us of the huge variation between and within species on the planet. My first visit was primarily to see the Kurt Jackson exhibition with my friend Lyn who had travelled from Emsworth to see it, and the second visit with my granddaughter Elsie who I thought would love the variety of things there are to stroke; and indeed she did love it. The trip from Swindon to Oxford can comfortably be undertaken on the number S6 bus, there are three an hour, so you never have to wait long, and if you've just missed one, you're front of the queue for the top front seats, giving a fabulous view of the route.
I've started with the outside of the building, somewhat marred at the moment by work going on behind the hoarding, but you can see what the left hand side looks like
The internal structure of the building is fabulous, there's a video about the building which says that even if all the exhibits were removed, there would still be a lot to see. You can see the skeleton of the building, and on the first floor, the pillars holding up the roof are made from different rocks from all over the country, each one is labelled. There are masses of skeletons of dinosaurs and other animals, the one above is a Iguanodon bernissartensis, a dinosaur skeleton from Belgium, discovered in a coal mine in 1878, found 322 metres underground by the miners. It was thought to have walked on 2 legs, but there appear to be hooves on the front legs, so it probably walked on all fours. However it looks splendid like this.
There are two bears near the entrance which bear the notice, 'please touch', it's a great way of encouraging children in, and they love feeling the difference between the black bear and brown bear's fur.
This is something else to touch, a large lump of Orbicular granite, the label says 'the rare and unusual patterns in this igneous rock are called orbicules, which form as spheres of crystals.
Below is a huge piece of Pyrite (FeS2), also known as fool's gold, often formds cubes. Here it has formed pyritohedrons, shapes with twelve pentagonal faces.
This is the poster for the Kurt Jackson exhibition
I took a few photos of the exhibits which are in cabinets, something I think works really well for displaying these works.
Above a huge number of organisms from a 'Spreading Oak field in Somerset on a summer's day in 2019, included are small paintings of the living things he found there on that day.
I love the Hogweed painting
The picture above was made from impressions of different grasses found in a field around the building
The final photo I took of the exhibition was this one, there are one three paintings, the top is of a churchyard in Penzance, the next is a Somerset thatched roof; apparently there are up to 3,000 species on one roof. The spider picture is an etching plate depicting household spiders.
There is much more to the exhibition, it's on until 15 May and well worth a visit.
There's also a cafe on the first floor with ethically sourced food and drink.
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